


as you wish they were; as they were not

by botherd



Category: New Girl
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:56:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/botherd/pseuds/botherd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU of episode 2.12, "Cabin". Jess gets dumped, Angie gets flirty, and Nick freaks out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	as you wish they were; as they were not

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kyra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyra/gifts).



> Inspired by [this prompt](http://kyrafic.tumblr.com/post/46627162057/lets-have-a-three-some) in your [fic I wish existed tag](http://kyrafic.tumblr.com/tagged/fic-I-wish-existed). I hope this is something like what you wanted!
> 
> Thanks to kristin for the beta.

"Jess, are you okay?"

Jess blinks and looks up at Nick, his face blurry from behind her tears. She's curled up on the couch in a cabin that isn't hers, newly boyfriendless, and trying to make herself so small she'd disappear. Apparently it hasn't worked.

"I'm fine," she says, as matter-of-factly as she can manage when her eyes are all red and puffy and mascara tear tracks line her face. "We don't have to let this ruin our weekend."

Even though the whole point of the weekend was a romantic getaway with her boyfriend, and it's kind of difficult to continue with that once your boyfriend has gone away.

"Really?" Angie says. (She's still there. Huh. Jess had forgotten.) "Does this mean you're going to stop moping? Because I'm as bummed as everyone about the loss of the hot doctor, but there are still three of us here if we want to do this thing."

Jess isn't sure if Angie has anything specific in mind when she says "this thing," but she hauls herself off the couch. "You're right. You're totally right. Screw Sam. We're going to have so much fun without him."

"Uh," Nick says, "Exactly what type of fun are we talking about here?"

"Crafting," Jess suggests, at the same time as Angie says, "Sex."

Nick's eyes bulge a little. "Okay, wow. Let's just, uh, hold that thought, because right now I need to go... over here." He opens a door to what Jess is pretty sure is a closet and backs into it slowly, all fake nonchalance, then slams the door behind himself.

"You were joking, right?" Angie says, and Jess forces out a laugh.

"Totally joking. _Crafting_. Please. Who would want to do that? Not me." Jess pulls a face to drive the point home. Why she's trying to impress Angie, she isn't quite sure, because she _definitely_ isn't down for whatever it is Angie's proposing, but Sam just broke up with her in part because she isn't as "fun" and "spontaneous" as she was when she was Katie, and--

\--and this breakup must have screwed with Jess even more than she'd realized.

A silence follows, threatening to stretch interminably, and then comes a muffled shout from the closet: "Absinthe! I found absinthe!" Nick emerges, waving the bottle in triumph. "Let's get drunk and forget our feelings! Who's with me?"

\---

Absinthe is a terrible idea. That's what the little dancing cartoon animals in front of Jess keep telling her, but they're so cute, and it tastes so _good_ , and Nick is so handsome when he's arguing with the stag's head mounted on the wall.

"You guys are such lightweights," Angie says with a giggle, but she looks pretty wasted too given that she's lying upside down on the couch and waving her arms around like she's some kind of ballerina. Probably the creepy Black Swan kind, Jess thinks as she looks up at her from her place on the floor, and her woodland creature friends nod sagely before going back to prying the absinthe bottle from her hand.

She takes another swig. Fuck Mr. Squirrel; Jessica Day does what she wants.

Her gaze wanders back to Nick, who's still arguing with the stag about something that sounds high-powered and important. For a moment Jess can see why Nick nearly became a lawyer, and in another universe he'd be a good one. Not a happy one, though--and then Jess is crying again, about all their terrible choices and the things that they've lost, and why is she even this sad? She never cared much about Sam anyway.

A weird, wet sensation starts happening in the general area of Jess's neck, and it takes her a moment to figure out what's going on: Angie has slid off the couch and started kissing her collarbone.

"Don't cry," Angie says between kisses, her voice way more soothing than Jess ever imagined it could be. "Sex is so depressing when someone is crying."

"We're having sex?" No, Jess realizes, that's the wrong tense. "We're going to have sex?"

"No way," Nick says, and Jess thinks he's addressing her, not the stag. "I mean, yeah! Or whatever is cool with you, I don't know."

"Stop thinking so hard," Angie says, although honestly, that's not the problem. She kisses Jess again, on the mouth this time, and it's--it's surprisingly nice. What's more, after another minute of slow, careless kisses and a soothing hand on the back of her neck, Jess realizes that she's stopped crying.

Also Nick's face has gone purple, and that's kinda fun.

"Oh man," he says under his breath, and before he can say anything else, Angie has pulled him to the floor and started kissing him, hard.

Jess kind of zoned out for a minute there, watching Nick's tongue dipping into Angie's mouth, but she snaps back into focus when she feels a soft hand on her neck--Angie's--pushing her forward until her face collides inelegantly with Nick's. His stubble scrapes along her jaw as their mouths struggle to find each other, connecting eventually with a jolt of electricity that shoots straight through Jess. Behind them Angie laughs softly--not cruelly, but it spurs Jess on, makes her pull Nick closer, kiss a little harder.

When they pull apart Nick looks shellshocked, just like Jess feels: off-kilter, like her center of balance has shifted and she doesn't know how to steady herself again. And then laughter is spilling out of her mouth, and Nick's, and Angie is saying, "You guys are so weird," before pulling Jess into a kiss again.

\---

About the time when Angie starts tugging Jess's top off, everything changes.

"Oh man, this is so good," Nick says. "Yeah! Definitely a hundred percent fantasy, zero percent nightmare. No man could hate this!"

"Shut up, Nick," Angie says between bites on Jess's collarbone, and as she unclasps Jess's bra Jess makes the fatal mistake of opening her eyes.

The color drains from Nick's face as they make eye contact, and then he's on his feet and backing out of the cabin, slowly at first before breaking into a run and yelling behind him, "I gotta go, I gotta go throw up!"

"What the fuck is his problem?" Angie asks, directing the question at the universe in general rather than at Jess.

"I think he just had too much absinthe," she says, fumbling to find her shirt. Nick's exit killed the mood dead, and she's suddenly, brutally aware that she's half-naked with Nick's girlfriend, and seriously, how did she get here? "I'm gonna go check on him."

Angie looks at her then, like something just occurred to her. "You know, if Nick wants to be a pussy about this we don't actually need him for this, if you're still interested..."

"Um, no thank you. I'm super flattered, but I think I really should go check on Nick."

"Seriously?" Angie looks pissed, but all Jess can do is shrug apologetically and follow Nick out of the cabin.

She finds Nick outside, lying on the ground like an upturned turtle, his face screwed up in a grimace.

"Hey, Jess," he says when she approaches him, "don't look behind that purple bush; it's where I threw up. I don't want you to see my shame."

"When it comes to your shame, I've seen much worse," she says. "Besides, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna need to throw up too. The trees keep switching places and it's making me dizzy."

"Do it, you'll feel better. Well, you'll feel sober."

When some of the absinthe is out of her system she does feel better--physically, at least. She sits down on the ground next to Nick, who's stretched out a bit and seems to be less angry at the sky.

"Are you okay?" Jess asks. "It seemed like you kinda got weirded out by the whole situation back there."

"What, me? Weirded out? I think you'll find that as a red-blooded male I was super into it."

"Nick, it's okay. It _was_ a bit weird. Things got kinda crazy back there, you know?"

"Yeah, crazy _awesome_ ," he says. "I--" But he's interrupted by the unmistakable sound of a motorcycle revving up and pulling out the driveway. "Oh man, there goes my ride home."

"Mine already left," Jess says, and it's the exact opposite of funny, really, but they both start laughing.

"We both got dumped," Nick says through his laughter. "This is the worst romantic weekend of all time."

"We're gonna have to call Schmidt to pick us up." Their laughter turns hysterical and Jess can't even keep upright; its not long before she's lying on the ground too. Their heads touch, and their laughter instantly dissolves. Jess glances Nick's way, but he's looking resolutely upwards at the lightening sky.

He sighs a little and says, "Maybe I did freak out a bit."

"Hey, I get it. It's weird seeing someone you like make out with someone else, and you obviously had feelings for her."

Nick tilts his head sideways and looks at her for a long moment. "Yeah, that must have been it."

Somewhere in the more sober part of her brain Jess knows it's something else, but she can't quite look directly at that right now. The sun is starting to come up and Nick's hair is soft against her temple and it should be a time for quiet, but she can't help words from spilling out of her mouth.

"Also, we kissed."

With a laugh, Nick says, "Yeah, we totally did."

Jess screws her face up. "It was kinda weird, wasn't it?"

"Wha--weird?" Nick sits up and when Jess looks at him, he's aghast. Or maybe his outrage is fake; Jess can't quite tell.

She sits up on her elbows. "I'm just saying, it was a little on the sloppy side."

"Sloppy? No way." Definitely fake outrage, judging from the way the corner of his mouth keeps creeping up. "I'm an outstanding kisser, okay. One day I'll kiss you properly and you'll see."

"Yeah?" A smile creeps across Jess's face; they've never talked like this, and Jess has always been sure that if they did, it would be too awkward. But it's just Jess and Nick being Jess and Nick. "Well go on, Miller, let's see what you've got."

"I'm not going to do it _now_. We both just got dumped and our breath smells like vomit. But trust me, it's going to happen."

Jess's mouth feels dry. She tries to keep it light, but her words come out way more serious than she intends. "Is that a promise?"

Nick nods, holding her gaze. "Count on it."


End file.
